


Actions Speak Loudest

by saavik13



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Slavery, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 18:51:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13218987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saavik13/pseuds/saavik13
Summary: It's not enough just to believe it's wrong.





	Actions Speak Loudest

John isn’t one to let himself get lost in introspection. That kind of thing is dangerous and can only really lead to conclusions he’s happier living in denial about. He’s broken – he knows it. But he doesn’t need to contemplate exactly how he is, or why, or for how long. If truth be told he’s kind of been that way long before the betrayal and the bomb and … everything. 

Dorian however, he’s the most introspective _thing_ John’s ever had the disadvantage of meeting. The android is constantly analyzing himself, and everyone else, looking for patterns and motives and trying to understand. John doesn’t think it’s healthy, but then John isn’t a robot so who’s to know who’s right?

But all that time with the damn thing has taught John a few truths he’d tried to keep happily in the land of denial. Each one has hurt like hell, shaken his relationship with the world and god and humanity to the point he honestly just wants to hid in bed and cry. But he’s a man damnit, and he’ll suck it up like he sucks up everything and he will keep going. What other option is there?

It isn’t right. None of it’s _right_. You don’t make something that can think, is aware of its own mortality and individuality, that can feel pleasure and pain and fear and then ask it do what they want the DNR’s to do. No, ask isn’t the right word. Force, require, _enslave_ is more what it is and John shudders whenever his mind slips and lets him think about it. Dorian is a slave. The irony of it is palpable, that they chose a black man as the model for an entire line of carefully constructed slaves. Whose bright idea was that? What kind of political correctness course did that jerk fail?

Of course, no one but John sees it that way. Except perhaps Dorian himself –and whatever other Dorians are left out there. He’s been making a list, quietly, at night. Tracking down as many as still exist. The MXs are plentiful but the DNR’s were only ever experimental. They weren’t manufactured in huge batches – they were done the old way by what Rudy calls android craftsman. Each one unique in how they are put together even if they look alike on the outside. So far of the 110 that were made he’s found twenty-three left alive.

Alive – if you can call it that. Three were sold to NASA – it would have been four if Dorian hadn’t been saved at the last minute. They are beyond help now, slowly working themselves to death in the cold and darkness out there. A great deal went to heavy mining companies and other manufactures that needed expendable workers. Most of them are gone now too. The two that are left, John’s been discussing with people. He’s holding out hope. 

Fourteen went down in the line of duty before the program was shut down. Ten more self-destructed while they were waiting for their fate to be determined. What was left went to hospitals and schools and government parks – anywhere that applied for the grant for the expensive but temperamental equipment that was too volatile for police work. They are safer where they are, even if they are slave labor and John just tries to keep a watchful eye out. Twenty-three – that’s all that’s left. 

He doesn’t have a lot in savings, but the tech is old and they are breaking down. The two that are left in the mining outfit aren’t exactly cheap to buy but he can just do it if he borrows against everything he’s got. What he’ll do with two badly used DNR’s he doesn’t know but he can’t… he can’t just let them die.

They come in two big crates, turned off and lifeless. Dorian helps him carry them up to his apartment without knowing what’s inside. He askes, but John isn’t sure what to tell him. When the lids come off Dorian is silent. The two inside are naked, their chest plates scared and missing fingers. Nobody bothered to repair anything that wasn’t essential so their ‘skin’ is shredded. They are hardly recognizable.

“Tell me you didn’t buy them for spare parts.” Dorian manages to choke out and John shakes his head.

“I bought them because if they stayed where they were they’d be dead.” John admits, softly. “How could someone do this to them?” He asks even softer.

Rudy shows up without John calling him and Dorian doesn’t hide that it’s his doing. Rudy has a whole mobile workshop in two big travel trunks and they set it up in the middle of the living room. The kitchen island becomes a surgery and they quickly figure out there’s not enough synthetic skin and no extra fingers. Dorian’s parts are supplied by the department – they can’t fake incident reports for this much stuff, and Rudy’s personal collection is limited. But they do what they can. Dorian decides what gets priority and neither of them argue.

Their faces are repaired – hands patched as best they can. Clothes can cover a lot of the rest until they can do better.

John is the one who turns them back on. 

They wiped their minds when he bought them. They can’t remember anything – just their basic programing. It’s a little like having two full grown men with the minds of toddlers. They don’t have access to the same network as Dorian, they can’t just update their files, and for the first two months it’s pitiful.

They don’t have names – don’t understand why he wants them to pick them. They call him master twice before he yells so loud the neighbors call the cops. Finally Dorian interfaces with them and downloads copies of the unclassified work they’ve done and they start to understand.

He’s not at all sure what he’s going to do with them but Rudy provides the answer with an offer. There’s outfits that you can rent out your bot to, for different jobs. The two new DNR’s could make a tidy bit of money doing odd jobs here and there and it would be a way to pay for more parts – and replenish some of his bank account. John doesn’t want to do it without their consent, which is weird and awkward and he finally has Dorian talk to them.

They are only too happy to help, especially at the prospect of being able to get more repair parts. The jobs are heavy labor but not dangerous and he keys the house so they can come and go – gives them permission to book their own jobs and even sets up bank accounts for each of them. They can’t be in their names of course, partially because they don’t have any yet, but mostly because a bot can’t own anything. But John makes it clear it’s their money they are earning.

He’s a little put out when Dorian explains later that they are both giving half their earnings to him, to both pay him back for what he spent buying them, and for the use of his energy grid connection. It’s not cheap to recharge three DNR’s on a regular basis but he was managing….

They end up asking to be called David and Debbie. He’s not sure how exactly a DNR ended up transgender but he and Rudy roll with it. Rudy rolls with it a little too well and John has to remind him that Debbie’s not exactly got the individual thing down yet. She can’t quite consent.

Eventually though he has to admit they make a weirdly cute couple. When Rudy offers to buy her, John scuffs and tells her to just go be happy. Nobody should own her and if anybody has to on paper it’s better if its someone she trusts.

It’s the first time Debbie hugs him and that he sees David cry.

It takes two and half years before there’s enough money in the accounts for Debbie and David to approach him. They’ve both gotten all their repair parts but they want to do something else. They want Dorian safe.

Buying your partner from the department wasn’t exactly unheard of. When the old MX’s were replaced with upgraded models several people got theirs at auction. Others argued that like the old police dogs, if they were being put out to pasture they ought to get the chance for a quiet life with people they knew. Regardless they weren’t cheap but it wasn’t unheard of.

Dorian thinks it’s stupid. He’s happy as a cop and he wants to go down in the line of duty.’

John agrees with that sentiment but he says, quietly, that he’d rather Dorian got to do that of his own free will.

They have a party when it’s done – John’s new MX2 partner is there and confused by it all. Dorian is still riding with them but he’s no longer department issue so the MX feels there’s redundancy. That’s fine, John thinks, because no one can replace Dorian.

The MX2 bites it two weeks in. The second one lasts a month. His reputation as a bot killer is nicely intact.


End file.
